


I'll crawl home to her

by otfuckingp



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Die mad about it, Doctor Clarke Griffin, Hitman AU, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Inaccuracies, More tags to follow, Roommates, Slow Burn, Stabbing, author is a brit, i mean its not over but we'll get there, i spell things weird, like....i tried but im not a doctor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 09:51:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19003357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otfuckingp/pseuds/otfuckingp
Summary: He stops dead, allowing a smirk to pull up the right corner of his mouth. There’s not much point in maintaining that he doesn’t know what’s going on, even if internally he’s reeling. He’s been so careful, always terrified someone’s going to pin down his real identity. He wears gloves and an ever-changing mask whenever he leaves to do a job, takes hotel rooms across the city on different credit cards to use as a base whenever a job takes more than a day, never walks the same way home, uses burner phones and rotating emails and temporary bank accounts to keep everything anonymous. He’s been doing this for years, for fuck’s sake. He’s a professional.Professional or not, someone’s finally figured him out. Even if he gets out of this, it’ll be damn near impossible to find out who. The list of high-profile, influential assholes in this city that want him dead is not a short one.





	I'll crawl home to her

**Author's Note:**

> If you've been following on Tumblr, you might know this as the Bellamy Gets Stabbed AU, which came about through sleep deprivation and a couple of shitposts.
> 
> I blame finals. Turns out that not wanting to revise for physics is an excellent way to write 5k in a day.
> 
> Title is from Hozier's Work Song.

Not that long ago, he’d barely have been able to keep his eye in the scope, too distracted by his own harsh breathing and the thundering of his heart. Shaking hands would have loaded the clip, fumbling and forgetting the training they’d spent years working into him. 

Tonight, though, there is no sound. No breeze, not even this high up, nothing but the steady thrum of his heartbeat. He is too far away to overhear the low chatter and music, more than 100 yards between him and what he came here for.

He loads the clip without looking, going through the motions with a practiced ease and feigned calm. His eyes stay fixed on what he knows to be the yellow rectangle of a window in front of him. It’s nothing more than a wavering blip in the distance. Looking through the scope, it’s thrown into sharp relief, an elaborate windowpane pointing into a well-lit room. 

A solitary figure steps into view. He cannot tell if they’re facing in or out. It doesn’t matter; he’s too far out to be seen even if they knew to look. The light makes the figure no more than a silhouette; he cannot see a single feature besides height and build. 

It’s all he needs.

A deep breath in, hissing out between his teeth as he squeezes the trigger. Shockingly simple, when you get right down to it. He’d been surprised, the first time. 

Distantly, he hears the tinkling of falling glass, music spilling out between the windowpanes and drifting to him. In seconds, it will be replaced by screams. In minutes, the wail of sirens. He does not need to look to know the shot landed.

The rooftop is empty before the body hits the ground.

... 

Grocery shopping  _ sucks. _ It’s an endless struggle of wanting to buy everything now that he knows he can afford it, fighting down the bone-deep, instinctual panic of  _ not _ being able to afford it, and buying more things than he can fit in the fucking shopping bags he brought.

He walked in with 3 reusable plastic bags, a sensible, ordered list of what he needed to get to feed them for a week, and a healthy dose of ambition. But then he’d been waylaid by fresh yams, and pumpkin squash, and  _ oh _ those peanuts would be perfect for pad thai...

He should’ve known plans don’t last for 5 minutes once shit gets started. 

It had been his week to buy groceries, and that means he gets to cook whatever he likes all week and Clarke can  _ shut it _ , because she wouldn’t know what to do with couscous if he threw a recipe book at her head. He would know, he’s tried. It’s much better than subsisting on Chinese takeout and pizza when it’s her week to do food. 

 

At least she always remembers to get the wontons.

So he starts the walk back, dodging off of the main street as early as he can, sliding into 3 back alleys before he lets his shoulders drop even a fraction of an inch.  _ You can never be too careful.  _

He almost laughs when two men step out of the shadows. _ I just had to go and relax. _ Black-clad from head to toe, both taller and burlier than him, either of them might even be someone he’s worked with before. Not that he tends to take those kinds of jobs, but you never know. For a half second, he almost wonders if he’s being hired, but then he spots the holster on one guy’s hip and the knives strapped to the other’s leg.

There’s a difference between carrying a weapon in case a situation arises versus carrying one to start a situation. Bellamy thinks of the Bowie he’s got stashed in his left boot, and he’s pretty sure he knows what these guys are about.

So they  _ do _ mean business. Just not the kind he’d been hoping for. 

Fleetingly, he thinks Clarke would kill him for that pun. Hell, if he makes it out of this, he’ll let her. 

Unluckily for him, both his hands are laden down with grocery bags, so that’s not going to make surviving any easier.

Neither of the men moves, just blocking the mouth of the alley so he can’t get past. He knows better than to turn his back on them—that would be an excellent excuse for one of them to sink a push dagger into his spine—so walking away isn’t an option. 

He stops dead in front of them, allowing a smirk to pull up the right corner of his mouth. There’s not much point in maintaining the pretence that he doesn’t know what’s going on, even if internally he’s reeling. He’s been so  _ careful _ , always terrified someone’s going to pin down his real identity. He wears gloves and an ever-changing mask whenever he leaves to do a job, takes hotel rooms across the city on different credit cards to use as a base whenever a job takes more than a day, never walks the same way home, uses burner phones and rotating emails and temporary bank accounts to keep everything anonymous. He never keeps any of his weapons anywhere other than in storage lockers under a list of different names, rotates the contents every three weeks.

The only person he contacts that knows him in real life is Murphy, and saying he ‘knows’ Murphy is a bit of a stretch. Murphy gets his hands on rounds for military-issue M17s and M4s and scratches out the serial numbers, Bellamy takes them, never speaks of it again, and orders a shot of bourbon from him at Clarke’s favourite dive bar every two weeks.

Murphy wouldn’t have told anyone; he knows Bellamy could kill him without breaking a sweat. He’s been doing this for  _ years _ , for fuck’s sake. He’s a professional.

Professional or not, someone’s finally figured him out.  _ Fuck _ . Even if he gets out of this, it’ll be damn near impossible to find out who. The list of high-profile, influential assholes in this city that want him dead is not a short one. 

The smaller guy on the left does not seem amused by Bellamy’s brazen lack of fear. Okay, so he’s definitely never worked with that one before. Bellamy makes a note of anything distinctive he can, particularly the weird scarring on his upper lip.  _ Someone should’ve told this motherfucker to wear a mask.  _  If either of them gets out of this shit, he’s tracking this asshole down.

The second guy is pretty nondescript, your standard run-of-the-mill military grunt. He’s got short-shaven hair that was probably black before he buzzed it all off, forearms as thick as Bellamy’s thigh, an ugly face with an at least thrice-broken nose, and a sneer curling his lip.

“You gonna let me past?” Bellamy keeps his tone deliberately light even as he shifts his stance, widening his legs and putting most of his weight onto his back foot. Neither of them says anything, and for a long moment Bellamy has no idea what to do. They really don’t seem to want anything from him other than to watch him sweat. He gets that; knocking someone off-balance is half the battle. He just doesn’t understand what kind of battle he’s in for just yet.

Probably the bloody kind.

The second he thinks that, Big Ugly moves. He’s the one with the pistol, and Bellamy wastes the half-second he could’ve used to twist his wrist out by disentangling himself from the clutches of plastic grocery bags. 

The bags fall to the floor in a pile, apples rolling almost comically across the floor. If Bellamy weren’t busy diving behind a dumpster to avoid getting shot, bullets zinging off the metal barely six inches from his head, he’d probably try to come up with some smartass quip about it.

As it is, he’s yanking the knife from the back of his boot, cursing himself for not grabbing the extra two he keeps in his desk drawer. 

So, the thing movies don’t tell you about fights is that guns run out of bullets remarkably quickly. And Bellamy knows from experience that once you’re in fight mode, hands jittery and lungs burning with adrenaline, it’s damn hard to reload a gun.

All he’s gotta do now is wait for Big Ugly to run out of bullets. 

No sooner has he thought this than Asshole appears in front of him, and Bellamy remembers with a sinking feeling the knives the guy’d had strapped to his leg. Well, not so much remembers as is visually reminded, as within seconds one is flashing a hair’s breadth from his eye.

_ Fuck. _

This is just about the dumbest situation he’s ever found himself in, and he can’t help but think that if Pike could see this, he’d kill him personally. His back’s against the wall, two better-armed adversaries in front of him, and only about one dumbass idea between himself and death. 

Alright. 

Time to get to work. 

He keeps up the scared and confused act, lets his eyes go wide and jaw slacken, even as he drops his arms by his sides. Asshole hasn’t seen the knife yet, which is a small mercy, even as he crowds him up against the wall, tip of the blade only a few millimetres from an important artery or two. 

This is the point where if Asshole were smart, he’d drive the knife straight through his throat and be done with it. 

Bellamy would bet his life--is betting his life--that he isn’t. He’s the kind to monologue.

“My father sends his regards.”  _ Okay, what kind of boring ass movie-villain line is that? _

Bellamy says nothing, but the thought must show on his face, because Asshole digs the knife in just that bit harder, and Bellamy feels blood start to trickle down across his collarbone. The sting barely registers.

“You’ve had this coming for a lo--” he doesn’t get to finish that sentence before Bellamy brings a knee up, hard. It doesn’t quite land, but the shock is enough to get Asshole off-balance, get the tip of the knife another couple of millimetres away from his throat. 

Bellamy doesn’t think, just gets his hand up and  _ shoves _ , gets Asshole off him and another foot back, striking out with the knife in his other hand as he does. Another bullet buries itself in the brick above Bellamy’s head, raining dust into his eyes.  _ That’s four. _

Bellamy doesn’t see so much as feel the knife catch on several layers of fabric, slicing through the sleeve of Asshole’s coat and shirt. It’s incredibly unlikely it actually cut through to skin, but it serves to get him rattled, and that’s what matters. 

He figures he has about two seconds before Big Ugly gets back into this, either with that pistol or another knife he hasn’t seen yet. So he doesn’t bother drawing it out. It’s pretty clear Asshole hasn’t had much combat training, if the way the knife trembles between his fingers is any indication. He’d been planning on going into this with heavily-armed muscle doing all the work for him, leaving him to bluster and grandstand.

Bellamy takes a second to smirk, and it costs another bullet grazing his shoulder. It doesn’t get through the jacket.  _ Five. And you’ve got shit aim. _

It takes no more than a moment, then, to drop his own knife, knock Asshole’s arm down, and get a fist to the guy’s face.  

It’s barely a fight. Asshole gets a weak, glancing blow off his cheekbone that  _ might _ bruise, the dull ache of it hardly registering. Bellamy knows how to play this game. Sacrifice this blow, let him think he’s gained an inch, and trade it for another step forward. He drives his elbow straight into Asshole’s solar plexus, and barely saves himself the satisfaction of watching him turn grey. He drops like a stone. 

Pivoting on his heel, he makes eye contact with Big Ugly, grin borderline feral. “You’re a fucking awful shot” He doesn’t wait, running for the dumpster before the gun even goes off. For the sixth and final time. 

Changing tack, he springs up from behind the container, sacrificing grace for speed as he barrels right at the guy. Ugly offers a toothy grin, bringing the pistol up. If he’d had any bullets, it would’ve hit Bellamy square in the chest, point blank. Game over. As it is, there isn’t even time for Ugly’s face to contort in confusion before Bellamy’s on him. 

He grabs the inside of Ugly’s wrist, momentum and adrenaline lending him enough strength to spin the bigger guy back against the wall. His head slams against the bricks with a sickening  _ crack _ . He gets his hands on the barrel, twists and twists and yanks until the wrist bones give way with a  _ snap. _

Gun firmly in hand, he brings the stock down on Ugly’s temple. And again, and again, and  _ again,  _ until he crumples in a twisted heap against the wall. 

Dead? Hard to say. Probably not. He’s not going to stick around to find out, though.

He gets two steps into retrieving his knife when, speak of the devil, a knife arcs inelegantly past his shoulder. Lo and behold, Asshole’s back on his feet, face ashen and balance unsteady, but determination evident in every line of his body, another dagger clenched in his grip. 

Bellamy doesn’t think. He cocks the pistol, bringing it directly level with Asshole’s forehead. “Bet you anything my aim’s better.” He’s out of bullets. But Asshole doesn’t know that.

“Bet I could still sink this into you before you get a shot off.”  _ Stubborn bastard. _

“Beg to differ. And then you’d be dead, so you’d never know if it worked.”

Asshole goes silent for a second, and Bellamy presses harder. “You know who I am.” It’s not a question, but Asshole nods. “Then you know what I can do. What I’ve  _ already _ done.” 

If possible, the man goes an even lighter shade of grey.  _ Maybe he’ll pass out before I have to do anything.  _ He pastes the bravado back on, an arrogant smirk curling his mouth. “Killing people? Regular Tuesday for me. The thing is, corpses start turning up in alleys and people start asking questions. Questions I’d rather not have to deal with this close to home.” He swallows, chancing another half step closer. He could make the shot with his eyes closed, now.  _ If he had any fucking bullets. _

When he speaks again, his voice is soft, dangerous. “I’ll give you two seconds to get the  _ fuck _ out of here. After that, I’m splattering your brains all over that wall there.” He gestures with his head, and Asshole follows the look. 

Asshole’s eyes drop to his midsection for a fraction of a second. Bellamy thinks he’s about to try something again. But then the barest smile graces his face and he holsters his knife, spins on his heel, and runs. Doesn’t even think of going back for his buddy.  _ Smart, but a fucking coward’s choice.  _

If every instinct in Bellamy weren’t screaming to run, get home, make sure Clarke is safe and his life is intact, he’d follow the bastard. As it is, he slips the gun into his waistband, tilts his head back, and takes a second to just  _ breathe. _

It’s such a nice day out. Shame, that.

He’s still buzzing, swaying on his feet at the sheer adrenaline coursing through him, when it registers that something’s wrong. He doesn’t do hand-to-hand much anymore; it’s messy and there’s too many ways to fuck up. He’s had more than a few arguments with Murphy over it. Which is why when he reaches down to pick up the abandoned grocery bags and he spots the blood smeared all down his right sleeve, his first, fleeting, fucked up thought is  _ I was fucking right. _

He yanks his sleeve up, already mourning the loss of the flannel he’s going to have to rip apart to serve as a bandage until he gets home. But when the skin of his arm is exposed and there’s nothing there except a scarred, freckled, but distinctly unblemished expanse, that’s when he starts to worry.

Neither of the other guys was bleeding. So where the fuck is the blood from. He strips off the heavy jacket and is partway through ripping off the flannel when he sees the widening red stain down his right side. As soon as he sees it, the adrenaline high drops out from under him and he plummets to the bottom. He can feel  _ everything _ now, from the ache in his left cheekbone to the sweat beading upon his brow, and not least of all the fucking fire licking up his ribs.

Slowly, slowly, he leans against the wall and lowers himself to the ground. Halfway down, his legs give out and he lands awkwardly, pain lancing up his side. Jesus  _ fuck. _ He keeps a hand pressed firmly against where he more or less thinks the wound is, but point blank refuses to lift his shirt and check it out just yet. That can happen when the panic isn’t clawing its way up his throat and it doesn’t feel like someone is stepping on his chest in platform boots.

Jesus.  _ Get it together, Blake. _

Okay. Deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out.  _ What the fuck do I do now? _

Contrary to what one might believe, given his job, Bellamy actually hasn’t been stabbed in a while. Probably not since his cadet days. You see, the thing about being good at your job in this line of work means that you spend more time doing the stabbing than the being stabbed.

Another perk of the job? He’s pretty sure, like 94% positive, that the stabbing is in a non-fatal area. Probably. Which is why his hand is more or less steady and his breath is even—or, as even as it can be given breathing feels like  _ fire— _ when he retrieves his phone from his pocket, carefully pulling up Clarke’s number. He has to pause, though, the protective instinct kicking right back in. Whoever it was that sent those guys is watching him. If he calls Clarke now, he’s pulling her into all of this. Whatever  _ this _ is.

She thinks he’s some kind of consultant, something that lets him travel a lot and disappear at a moment’s notice without arousing any suspicions. He hates to lie to her, especially with how easily she believes it (because who lies about their job, of all things) when the rest of their friendship is so easy. If he tells her he’s been stabbed in a random back alley, he’s either going to have to invent some kind of ultra-violent middle-of-the-day mugging, or drag her into this world he’s been working so hard to keep her out of for over a year.

He glances over at the guy lying prone, dressed in combat fatigues and with a wrist pointing the wrong way. He’s almost definitely not dead, just unconscious, but still. It certainly doesn’t look like a botched mugging, and he hasn’t got the energy to get up and drag the guy somewhere less suspicious.

What he should do is suck his shit up, tell Clarke he’s been called out-of-state, and then get the hell out of Dodge. He’s got medical supplies stashed in the shipping container on 43 rd ….

The thought strikes him like a physical blow.  _ If they know who I am, they have to know about her. _

Everything in him goes into overdrive, heart thundering even harder. They can’t get to Clarke. He can’t let that happen. Doesn’t matter who they are or what they want, nobody is touching her.

He doesn’t hesitate before he hits the call button.

It only rings twice before she picks up.

She sounds distracted, voice light and carefree, if a little distant. “Bellamy? I’m working right now, how important is this?”  _ If only you knew, Princess. _

His voice only shakes a little. “Uh…pretty important.”

“What’s wrong?” In an instant, her voice has gone tight, her panic lancing through him.

And, uh,  _ shit,  _ what does he say now? How do you tell your roommate, who happens to be a doctor and is currently at the hospital she works at, that you’ve been stabbed? Especially if you really, really don’t want anyone to know about it at all.

Because that’s the other thing. They’re going to have to disappear now. He hears someone in the background of the call say something to her, voice light, and her muffled response. A wave of guilt washes over him, thinking of the life she has here, the friends and neighbours that love her and the job she’s so damn passionate about. He’s about to rip it all away from her, and it’s because of the fucking choices he’s been making in knowing her for over a year, for letting himself get close and stay close.

He sends a silent apology to whoever’s up there that might be listening. “Look, I, uh…can’t tell you everything. But trust me, it’s really important. Can you come home?”

Home. He’s surprised to find that he actually means it. Their apartment, with an overgrown planter of herbs in the kitchen windowsill and a living room nobody ever bothers to clean up, not when their friends are just going to come over next weekend to trash it. Her room, which he’s only been in a couple times, with the comfiest-looking bed and her art all over the walls. The little pile of shoes to the left of the door under the keyrings and coat rack. His comfy chair that he keeps the ever-growing stack of books next to, and her easel facing the window, forever adorned with half-finished masterpieces. He’s taking that away from her, too.

She doesn’t even hesitate for a second, and he hates himself. “I’ll be right there. Give me five minutes to clock out, and I’ll call you once I’m in the car.”

“Alright. Talk soon, Princess.” He hangs up before she can reply, just barely suppressing the urge to fling his phone against the wall.

Okay. Damage control. If he actually manages to get home before she does, that’s probably better, so she won’t have to deal with seeing Ugly in the corner over there, or the spots where his blood soaked into the ground before he’d noticed he’d been fucking stabbed. He figures he has fifteen minutes, ten if he wants time to figure out what in the goddamn fuck he’s going to tell her.

The thing about that is, he’s been stabbed. And walking when you’ve been stabbed is kind of difficult on a number of levels. The first of which being that people kind of take notice at the dude wandering midtown with blood all over his stomach.

Groaning, he leans forward just far enough to rip the flannel off, hoping he’s not accidentally making anything worse. Externally, almost all stab wounds look the same. It’s the internal parts that get you. Before he has time to think it through, he rips the shirt so the bottom half comes off, leaving a strip that extends across both sleeves. He’s got to tie it around himself, keep some kind of pressure on the wound, but to do that he’s got to stand up first.

Rolling over is probably his best bet. He leans as far as he can get to the left, easing down onto his forearms and biting down on a scream when something inside him tears. All he has to do is get a knee under himself.  _ Get it together, Blake. _

Five minutes and a lot of pain later, he’s more or less standing. The cloth is tied as tightly as he dared without cutting off circulation or actually making himself scream. God only knows if that’s actually tight enough. Walking is going to be fun.

He grabs his discarded jacket, bending that half inch further to grab Asshole’s fallen knife. Bellamy looks briefly at the possibly-unconscious possibly-dead body in the corner.  _ He deserves so much worse than a broken wrist.  _ Bellamy’s side screams in protest. The sleeve of his jacket still has that smear of blood on it, but hey, the jacket is covering the giant bloodstain down his front, so that’s definitely an improvement. Besides, it’s that dark shade of blue-green where all stains just look vaguely wet, so as long as he doesn’t pass out on the walk home, it’s unlikely he’s going to be getting any weird looks.

His phone rings, and he wants to cry. Still, he picks up. “Hey.”

“Hey. What the fuck am I coming home for, exactly? Sydney was pissed.”

“Sydney’s always pissed.” He starts walking. So long as they keep bickering like this, he can probably use it to distract himself.

“No shit, but not usually at me.”

“Sorry about that.”

A pause. “You’re still not telling me why it is I’ve left in the middle of rounds to drive across the city.”

“I told you, I’ll tell you when you’re home.”

She almost growls, and it brings a smile to his lips despite himself. He’s always loved winding her up. “So help me, Bell, if you’re fucking with me, it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

He can’t hold in a snort, even though it hurts like a motherfucker.  _ It might be anyway.  _ “I promise, I’m not.”

“Then what the hell?”

He sighs in that long-suffering way he’s been patenting since Octavia was about 13, the one that says  _ you’re working my last nerve.  _ It’s never failed to piss Clarke off, but he’s hoping at least this time it’ll placate her a little, or even just make a distraction long enough for him to walk this last block and collapse on the couch. “I don’t want to tell you over the phone, alright?”

She almost sounds contrite. Almost. “Alright.” But the fire is back half a second later. “If I don’t hear it the exact second I step through the door, you’re dead to me.”

He can’t help but laugh. “You got it, Princess. I’m almost home, I’m going to go. See you in a minute.”

“…Sure.” She’s confused, which is fair, given that she’d probably expected he was already at home. And also she was probably expecting some kind of an emergency, and instead he’s giving her cryptic nothings and bickering. “See you soon, Bell.” The line goes dead.

Well. She’ll get her emergency soon enough.

Fitting his keys into the lock, Bellamy finally lets some of the tension drop from his shoulders. Now that he’s off the phone, the agony is back with a vengeance.

He swears getting stabbed didn’t used to hurt this much. He was fully planning on getting all the way to his room, maybe changing into a shirt that wasn’t soaked through with blood, coming up with some kind of way to explain to Clarke what he does and where it’s landed them both. Instead, he gets through the door, struggles his way down the hall to the living room, and all but collapses on the couch, everything kind of spinning around the edges. He takes a deep, ragged breath in.  _ I am not passing out. No. _

_ Not right now. _

**Author's Note:**

> Come scream with me on Tumblr about the fic or the 100 in general, s6 is killing my soul
> 
> Don't forget to comment or kudos if you liked it, feedback is my lifeblood. Idk when the next update will be, hopefully soon because I have literally 0 excuses not to write other than that free sims 4 download


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